In silico investigations of enzymatic reactions and chemical reactions in condensed phases often suffer from formidable computational costs due to a large number of degrees of freedom and enormous important volume in phase space. Usually, accuracy must be compromised to trade for efficiency by lowering the reliability of the Hamiltonians employed or reducing the sampling time. Reference-potential methods (RPMs) offer an alternative approach to reaching high accuracy of simulation without much loss of efficiency. In this Perspective, we summarize the idea of RPMs and showcase some recent applications. Most importantly, the pitfalls of these methods are also discussed, and remedies to these pitfalls are presented.

中文翻译：

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观点：研究化学过程中热力学性质的参考势方法：理论、应用和陷阱

由于大量的自由度和相空间中巨大的重要体积，凝相中酶促反应和化学反应的计算机模拟研究常常面临巨大的计算成本。通常，必须通过降低所用哈密顿量的可靠性或减少采样时间来牺牲准确性以换取效率。参考电位法 (RPM) 提供了一种替代方法，可以在不损失太多效率的情况下实现高精度模拟。在此观点中，我们总结了 RPM 的概念并展示了一些最近的应用程序。最重要的是，还讨论了这些方法的缺陷，并提出了这些缺陷的补救措施。